02-01 Indonesia

My first big mistake landing in Jakarta, Indonesia in 1993, to attend an International Small Business Congress, was to take a regular taxi to our four-star hotel. “Close the window. Close the window.” The sulphur in the air coming through the driver’s window was burning our eyes.
The hotels all have luxury limousines with air conditioning that will come and pick you up. I should have called for one.
And the congestion and chaos was everywhere. It was an hour and a half drive with humanity and vehicles of all kinds coming and going in every direction. Nothing orderly.
Talk about population density. Kids everywhere. A nation of enormous complexity. An over populated country of 255 million people and adding about 3 million per year.
The Canadian trade commissioner gave me my normal briefing. So many islands, so many tribes, so many dialects. To explain government policy or deal with issues like birth control, they give demonstrations using puppets. They have a vibrant small business community, with a large portion operating underground.
It was a military government at the time, and I would be meeting the President, General Suharto.
The government is doing its best to try to curb population growth, but Indonesia is a strict Muslim society and there is a significant portion of the population that does not believe in birth control. Children are considered a blessing. And, there is also a lot of polygamy. Not unusual for a man to have more than ten children.
What is so particular in nations with a lot of poverty and unemployment are child brides, and about a third of marriages in Indonesia are with girls under 18. And if they are unemployed they have children, one after another. Give them jobs and they have fewer offspring.
I had a private tour through some of the affluent areas and some of the poorer districts. The photo shows a form of public housing.
A visit to a jewellery factory showed at least a thousand workers each with a workplace no wider than 18 inches. They were all skilled and semi-skilled workers.
The pandemic will hit Indonesia hard, with the crowded living conditions. And climate change will be even a great problem with so many low lying islands dealing with flooding and cyclones.
But this vibrant nation with its exploding population is trying to educate its people and lift them out of poverty. All serious projections show them becoming one of the five largest economies over the next 20 years. They are already a major Chinese trading partner.